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He sits a little taller in his chair. "I made him an offer he couldn't refuse so he would leave you alone, get out of town, and not come back."
I blink back at him, waiting for his words to make some sort of sense in my head. My dad, the man who raised me, loved me, who I looked up to, offered the man I was in love with money to stay away from me. It doesn't matter how I say it in my own head, it doesn't hurt any less. My dad betrayed me and so did Brandon, because if he offered the money and then Brandon disappeared, dumping me in a text, that means he took the offer. "You paid him off to stay away from me?" I ask him, needing clarification. I can't believe that either of them would actually do this to me.
"That's right. That's all it took with him, Cassandra, a little bit of money, and he took off, never looking back. And if that doesn't prove to you what you meant to him, I don't know what else could." His words are cold, and they cut through me like tiny needles, piercing my skin all over.
Tears prickle my eyes. I knew there was a conversation; I knew my dad was the one who made him stay away, but this? To find out he paid Brandon off, that money was more important to him than what we had, it's like being crushed by him as he dumped me all over again. The air is sucked from my lungs, and I feel like I could pass out at any time. I try to suck in breaths as I cling to my chest. I need to get out of this room, away from my dad. Away from this house.
I stand so quickly the chair flies back, but I don’t care, I just need to run. Dad calls my name, and the sound whooshes through my head, distorted. Tears stream down my face. There is nothing else to say. I can't face another one of them when I feel like this. I just need to escape.
Grabbing my bag as I make it to the front of the house, I take off down the driveway and away from the pain of the words that I will never be able to get out of my head. “A little bit of money and he took off, never looking back.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
BRANDON
WhenAmeliacalledtotell me Cassandra had taken off from their family lunch after another fight with her dad, I wasn't surprised. But what I'm worried about is her not calling me to come pick her up. It didn't take me long to work out where she would be. And as I sit outside the dance studio, listening to the music float through the open door, I understand why. This is her happy place, her home away from it all when it gets to be too much, and the last month has been a lot to deal with. Fighting with her family, learning the truth about who I really am, and slowly letting me back in.
I stand in the doorway and watch her move to the music. I remember this song and the way she danced to it. This is her audition piece. I watched her rehearse it the night it all turned to shit. I was here just like this standing in the doorway, watching the most beautiful and talented girl I ever met put her heart and soul into her choreography. It gave me shivers just like it does now. I was in awe of her, obsessed with every little thing about her. Nothing has changed; if anything, it's intensified. I want her to be mine forever.
The song comes to an end, and she looks at her reflection in the mirror as she tries to catch her breath. Her eyes travel to the open door, and she jumps when she spots me standing in the opening.
"Brandon. What are you doing here?" she mutters, placing a delicate hand over her chest.
I push off the door, walking toward her. "Amelia called. Your sisters are worried about you, and so was I when you didn't call me to come and pick you up."
"I needed some space, some time to think. Alone." She wanders over to her bag and drops to the floor to sit by it, unraveling the ties on her ballet slippers and carefully wrapping them around the pale pink shoes before placing them in her bag like they’re fine china. She pulls on a pair of sweats and zips up her bag. I hold a hand out to help her up but she ignores it, instead standing on her own. And now I know for sure she didn't just need time to think. She was avoiding me.
"I need you to tell me it's not true," she utters, staring into my eyes. The pain I had almost gotten rid of is there again, staring back at me with new intensity.
I knew this day would come, when her dad would tell her the truth and paint me as the bad guy all over again. "Ask me anything and I will tell you the truth."
"Did my father pay you to stay away from me?"
That's his game now, tell her I took the money over her. No wonder she ran for it today. He wants me to stay away from her so badly that he would hurt her like that to make it happen. "Yes. But there's so much more to the story than what he will have told you."
She straightens, shoulders stiff, as she tilts her head up to me in a way that I know means she is about to shut me out again. "That's all I needed to hear. I think we’re done here." She pushes past me on her way toward the door.
Something inside me snaps. This isn't the end for us. I won't let her dad win and take her away from me again. "Hell no. We’re so far from done here. You don't get to have your say and then just walk away from me, Cassandra." My voice booms through the empty dance studio, louder than I intended.
She swivels around to face me. I can see the anger radiating off her as she narrows her eyes in on me. "Under these circumstances, I think I do. What could you possibly say to make this okay?" She approaches me slowly, as if it's a perfectly choreographed dance. She shoves me in the chest. "You took money from my dad to stay the fuck away from me. Do you know what that did to me, to hear that horrible truth? Do you even know how badly you destroyed me when you, the man I trusted... loved... broke up with me in a text message. I was going through so much, and I couldn't cope, and it was all because of you."
"You keep saying that, but what happened? Why didn't you get into that school in New York?"
She stares at me, her skin more pale than usual, and I wonder if I should have asked her again. But it's time she comes clean with me as well. "I had a fucking mental breakdown, Brandon, you ruined me. I couldn't audition properly, so I flunked it."
"Because I dumped you?"
"Because I was pregnant!" she cries.
A deathly cold shiver prickles over my skin, and I feel sick to the stomach. "Pregnant?"
"I found out the morning of my audition. I knew something was wrong. I had been feeling unwell for weeks, and Jasmine talked me into taking a test." Tears roll down her cheeks now like a waterfall. She’s distraught, and all I can do is stand and watch her.
I have no words. She was pregnant. Where’s the baby? "What—"
"I lost it," she stutters out. "My body was too malnourished from my stupid dance diet, I wasn't strong enough to sustain a baby. I lost my dream of becoming a dancer because I was pregnant, and our baby because I was a dancer.”
I can't even imagine what she went through. My own heart is breaking to hear the reality of how bad it was for her. I knew it wasn't good or she wouldn't have hated me so much when I returned, but to hear this… I feel like I’ve taken a big hit from a defensive end. "Cassie, I..."
